US, Turkey to mend ties

• Two sides agree to set up working groups to solve key issues

• Syria troops find mass grave west of Raqa

The United States and Turkey yesterday agreed to try to rescue a strategic relationship that Washington acknowledged had reached a crisis point, with Turkey proposing a joint deployment in Syria if a US-backed Kurdish militia leaves a border area.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met President Tayyip Erdogan during a two-day visit that followed weeks of escalating anti-American rhetoric from the Turkish government.

While relations between Washington and its main Muslim ally in Nato have been strained by a number of issues, Turkey has been particularly infuriated by US support for the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which it sees as terrorists.

Turkey launched an air and ground assault last month in Syria's northwest Afrin region to sweep the YPG away from its southern border. The United States has armed, trained and aided YPG fighters with air support and special forces, as the main ground force in its campaign against Islamic State.

"We find ourselves at a bit of a crisis point in the relationship," Tillerson told a news conference after meeting with Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu yesterday morning. He had met with Erdogan for a more than three-hour discussion on Thursday night.

"We've decided and President Erdogan decided last night we needed to talk about how do we go forward. The relationship is too important."

The United States has no troops on the ground in Afrin, where the Turkish offensive has so far taken place. But Turkey has proposed extending its campaign further east to the town of Manbij, where US troops are based, potentially leading to direct confrontation with US-backed units.

Cavusoglu, the Turkish foreign minister, said Turkey would be able to take joint steps with the United States in Syria once the YPG left the vicinity of Manbij.

"What is important is who will govern and provide security to these areas," he said. "We will coordinate to restore stability in Manbij and other cities. We will start with Manbij. After YPG leaves there, we can take steps with the US based on trust."

He also said the two countries had created a "mechanism" for further talks and would meet again by mid-March to further hash out their differences.

Meanwhile, Syrian troops have uncovered a mass grave containing the remains of more than 30 people killed by the Islamic State group in Raqa province, state media reported yesterday.

It is the third such find by the army in recent months in territory formerly held by the jihadists west of their onetime bastion.

The remains were transported to the military hospital in neighbouring Aleppo province to be identified.

In late December, Syrian troops found two mass graves in the west of the province. State media later reported that more than 150 bodies had been exhumed from them.